


you were my versailles at night

by leonshardt



Series: if it ain't broke, respawn it [3]
Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: M/M, Recovery, malfunctioning respawn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-04
Updated: 2015-03-04
Packaged: 2018-03-16 08:04:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3480602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leonshardt/pseuds/leonshardt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is something missing in his chest, aching sorrowfully in the morning and staying hollow at night, waiting and waiting and waiting for it to come together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you were my versailles at night

**Author's Note:**

> part whatever of respawn!verse. spy does stuff.

i.

Sniper’s camper van sits in the same place he left it, a stark shape interrupting the long desert line. It appears slightly dusty but otherwise no worse for the wear. The door creaks as Spy lets himself into the dimly lit interior.

It was almost untouched since the last time he’d been here: the bed unmade, curtains half drawn, a dated newspaper on the bed stand. His chest is tight as he makes his way through the narrow space, hoping for anything familiar that might have been left behind. Tinted sunglasses, an old watch. Anything.

It’s no good anyway, he thinks, as he sits down on the corner of the mattress, bed springs creaking under his weight. Miss Pauling would eventually clear everything out to put in storage, leaving Sniper’s things in a Mann Co. warehouse somewhere until he comes back— if he ever comes back.

 

 

 

They lay tangled together in the narrow bed the morning after, hardly moving but for the rise and fall of their chests with every breath. Warm sunlight filtered through the blinds, illuminating the floating dust motes in the van’s interior and giving the space an almost ethereal quality. Sniper shifted slightly beside him, and Spy let his hand slide over the edge of the sheets to where his arm rested. Covered the back of his hand with his own palm, letting their fingers slot together.

 _Christ, I didn’t peg you for the sentimental type,_ Sniper said, but he had held on nonetheless.

 _Perhaps I am just getting old,_ Spy said. _There is no time for youth, these days._ Sniper had laughed then, his breath shaking through his entire body. _What about after?_ he asked-- as if they could just walk away from this untouched, unburdened-- _Will you have time to be young then?_ Spy brushed a stray piece of hair away from his forehead, mussed with sleep.

 _Mon cher,_ he said, _I will still be slitting throats and stealing briefcases full of intelligence long after you have come and gone, and afterwards— I do not know where you are going._ It was a quiet admission, as fraught as he’d ever get. This was something he accepted long ago, that his life meant never being certain of what-- or who-- the future would hold, and if he could ever stop, if he would want to.

 _I shoot people in the head for a living,_ Sniper said. _That’s enough to make us even, don’t you think?”_ and his eyes creased into a smile, the kind of look he gets when he lands a perfect shot, tender, frightfully exhilarated. Spy wanted to keep it forever.

 _Mercenary,_ he whispered. An old joke, from years past. _You are no good for me, Mr. Mundy._

 _Maybe not,_ Sniper said. _But I’ll keep trying as long as you’ll let me._ His unshaven cheek was rough against his neck, skating past the thrum of the pulse there, dropping kisses above the burn scars on his collarbone. He slid his hand down to rest on Spy’s hip, tracing circles into damp skin. _Now who’s being sentimental?_ Spy murmured, and Sniper let his fingers dip lower as he leaned into him, sighing at the welcome heat.

 

 

 

Spy stands, rubs his eyes with the heels of his palms. The emptiness in the camper settles on him like the weight of an ocean, making strange what was once familiar.

 _Of course you’re no good for me,_ he thinks, a little bitterly. _You left me here alone, didn’t you?_ Distantly he knows it’s not really Sniper’s fault, not really, but things don’t always go the way you expect them to.

He pauses on his way out, looking behind him one last time, burning the small space into his memory. There’s sniper’s jacket hanging by the door, the smooth leather cool against his hands when he picks it up. Sniper had stopped wearing it in April when the desert started to warm up for summer. Spy holds the jacket close to his chest in a scrunched-up ball, dipping his head down—it smells like Sniper, the tang of gunpowder and coffee mixed with the faint aroma of aftershave.

 _I hope you don’t mind,_ Spy thinks, _as you won’t be needing this any longer._ He slings the garment over his shoulder, turns. Pauses. Then very carefully, pulls off one of his gloves and places it on top of the stack of newspapers on the counter like an offering: a piece of me for a piece of you.

He locks the door behind him as he leaves.

 

 

 

ii. 

The last time he woke up, his head was a splintery rattle of agony and Medic was expeditiously slipping morphine into him, but it was too little and too slow. He wheezed out desperately, _Where’s Sniper? Did he make it out?_ and the quiet look on Medic’s face told him everything he needed to know.

 

 

 

iii.

Medic had looked at him in that way of saying, “It takes time for these things to come together, Herr Spy.” Empty words. There is something missing in his chest, aching sorrowfully in the morning and staying hollow at night, waiting and waiting and waiting for it to come together. He rolls up his sleeves and stops wearing ties, smokes too much and sleeps too little, sheds Mann Co. like a snake skin on his way out.

He goes to Berlin first, milling about aimlessly before eventually wandering to Stuttgart. It rains for days on end and he turns up the collar of his coat against the wind, tilts his head back to meet the grey skies. It has been a long time since he’s felt the splash of raindrops against his bare face.

“Keeping dry, darlin’?” says the woman at the bar. She’s clad in a plunging navy dress, playing a string of pearls around her throat that match her brilliant-white teeth. There is something vaguely familiar about her, the shape of her eyes or the stretch of her long legs. Her accent is a big-city American drawl that hangs in the room amidst the German chatter in the background. Spy might have gone for her, once upon a time.

“A little rain is good for the flowers, mon cher,” he says, and she smiles.

He orders a martini.

 

 


End file.
